Juan Pablo Contreras

As of 2020, composer Juan Pablo Contreras remained in his student years yet had already drawn broad notice across Mexico, the United States, and farther afield. His compositions blend classical traditions with Mexican popular idioms.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1987, Contreras grew up surrounded by concert music because his mother worked as a pianist. During his teenage years he switched to electric bass and joined the metal group Life Keeper, an experience that unexpectedly steered him toward orchestral writing when his fellow musicians sought an ensemble sound. He therefore pursued studies in orchestration and grew determined to build a career as a composer. At eighteen he relocated to Los Angeles County, California, to enroll at the California Institute of the Arts, where operatic composer Daniel Catán served as his principal teacher and exerted a decisive influence. After completing his bachelor’s degree at CalArts, Contreras followed Catán’s advice and moved eastward to the Manhattan School of Music, where he received the BMI William Schuman Prize. He later returned to California to complete doctoral work at the University of Southern California, where he also held a teaching-assistant position as of 2020.

By that point Contreras had become a familiar presence on concert programs. He explained his artistic goal to the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra by stating, “My mission as an orchestral composer is to write classical music that is resoundingly Mexican,” a formula that resonated with listeners. Ensembles that performed his music included the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the Mexico City Philharmonic, and the UNAM Philharmonic in his home country; the Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra, the Waco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in the United States; and, internationally, the Salta Symphony, the Córdoba Symphony in Argentina, and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Recordings of his scores appeared on Universal Music Mexico, Albany Records, and Epsa Music, among other labels. In addition, he issued his own album Mariachitlán with the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra and, in 2020, scheduled performances of its repertoire with eight separate Mexican orchestras.